Film Review: Serenity (dir. J. Whedon, 2005)

As promised, I made my way down to the Regal Stadium 14 this afternoon to catch the latest installment in the Firefly franchise, Serenity. Disclaimers up front: I've never watched an entire episode of Buffy or Angel, and I had never seen the television series (all 11 of 14 episodes that actually aired). (Not a bias against these programs; as some of you may know, I have rules about episodic television. Rule # 1: Limit the number of episodic television programs you watch. Currently, I'm down to zero.) So I don't know how this compares to Whedon's other work, or how the characters in this film have developed in the show.

This is a pretty solid sci-fi movie. It was a fun ride, and some of the shots were pretty creative. (I liked the fade from live action to hologram in the early going; the dead planet "Miranda" was creepy.) Good dialogue, for the most part, and good acting and direction. Definitely worth a look. But . . .

Complaints: I have actually been down, lately, on the stylized martial arts fighting, so that kind of turned me off here. (I think that that sort of thing is standard in Whedon's work(?).) And there was a lot of it. Why does that kind of fighting turn me off? Because of my preference for cinematic realism, at least when it comes to the endurance of the human body (I don't mind a little fantasy when it comes, say, to space travel). Try this (thought) experiment: Have a friend hit you as hard as he can in the face. Repeat. Have him hit you in the gut as hard as he can. Again. How many such blows can you take? Not very many. But here, the Operative basically beats Mal like an old carpet, twice. There's a point beyond which I just lose interest. (Btw, don't really try that experiment. It'll hurt.) It's like a cartoon, and I can never get emotionally involved in animation.

Then there's the plot. Somehow, this Simon Tam character gets into a top-secret government facility and steals away his sister, R2-D2, a top-secret government psychic weapon (Drew Barrymore in Firestarter) . . . and then the Operative (Darth Vader Lite) hunts her down, killing huge swathes of the galaxy in the process . . . because she has some kind of secret in her memory banks, er, I mean, subconscious. There's something about an all-intrusive super-nanny State, but haven't we seen this before? Not just Star Wars, but several episodes of Star Trek, Logan's Run, Brave New World . . . isn't "pax" aerated soma?

Not to say that I expected themes that I'd never seen before. But . . .

The print I watched seemed kind of blurry around the edges. Was that intended? If so, to what effect?

Don't let these comments deter you. Go see this movie.

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